Cirith Ungol - 'The Black Machine' Live 1984

I have had another bad night of sleep apnea with no mask and so really feel like I have been riding the black machine of dread nightmare and incipient oblivion. So naturally I was like "Cirith Ungol! That is what will fix me!" and that is almost true. Cirith Ungol have an excellent claim to having made my favorite 1980's metal album of all time, King Of The Dead (1984), which encapsulates and extends far far into the abyss the practices of traditional/doom/battle metal. 'Black Machine' can almost been seen as a hellish inversion of Hawkwind's 'Silver Machine', and the Moorcock influence on both bands certainly cannot be overstated. The fact that there even exists live Cirith Ungol from 1984 is inherently miraculous and that it is of such audio/visual quality is even more amazing. Every element is clear and isolated, from Tim Baker's cries, to Jerry Fogle's amazing lead guitar work, to Michael Vujejia's amazing lead bass, to Robert Garven's drums. There is some tape-waver/near-dropout, but it doesn't really affect the listening experience too much. I can attest to this, as I keep listening to it over and over again. Of course, listening to 'Black Machine', makes me want to listen to 'Master Of The Pit', the titular entity of which is mentioned in 'Black Machine' and directly follows 'Black Machine' on King Of The Dead. Gosh I love Cirith Ungol. If I had a smoked/pulled meats BBQ operation, our slogan would be 'Bow Down And Kneel To The Master Of The Pit!' and we would have aprons that said that, and we would send Cirith Ungol tribute monies.